Generally when a game gets remade, you’ll assume that it’ll mostly be the same at least narratively, given how not normal can be with works that are considered uncomfortably sacred. That’s certainly what many may have guessed about the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy, only those pesky Whispers to get in the way offering some changes here and there. Rebirth continued that here and there, staying the course in other ways, and Revelation will be out next year with an ending you can’t change. And according to director Naoki Hamaguchi, that ending has been planned right from the beginning, more or less.

“Obviously, I can’t share actual details on how this story is going to end, but in terms of how we envisioned the conclusion, we did have some sort of an idea of what we wanted to do at the end,” Hamaguchi explained in an interview with VGC. “So we did have a kind of direction from the early days of development. The same goes for the producer, Yoshinori Kitase. He had his visions as well, and some of that is applied in the conclusion that we’re telling in FF7 Revelation.”

Hamaguchi also noted that the team is “pretty confident” with the ending they’ve concocted, sharing excitement over how everyone will react. Of course, still no indication there as to whether the trio of remakes will opt for an alternative ending to the original. At least the remakes won’t have to suffer from the same affliction as Kingdom Hearts, whereby everyone believes creator Testuya Nomura is making it up as he goes along (as if this isn’t just storytelling in general anyway).

In the same interview, Hamaguchi also spoke of how he responds to feedback from the general public, which seems to be a general ethos of “not that much, really.” He explains that trying to address the “median average” of feedback might not result in a “better product,” saying, “if you you were to address all the negative feedback, and even take the positive feedback into account, sometimes it’s a case that you’re seeing two sides of the extreme opinions, and by applying all of that, it’s possible that you come up with a product that doesn’t really have any character. It’s just a blank state that doesn’t really have any strong appeal.”

This is a stance I appreciate, given my history as a Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth minigame defender. As a reminder, a lot of people didn’t like how stuffed with minigames Rebirth was, and Hamaguchi says that Revelation will have just as many if not more, hence this sense of character he talks about. Refinement is overrated! Though video games are a bit too long these days, so, I’m still hoping Revelation won’t take me 10,000 hours to finish.